Crown finishes closing arguments at Rafferty murder trial

LONDON, ON (NEWS1130) – The Crown finished delivering its closing arguments today at the murder trial of Michael Rafferty, accused of killing eight-year-old Tori Stafford.

Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, sexual assault causing bodily harm and kidnapping in Stafford’s death on April 8, 2009. Terri-Lynne McClintic, the star witness at the trial, is already serving a sentence for first-degree murder in the Stafford case after pleading guilty at in 2010.

**Warning: details of this case are graphic**

Reporter Laura Carney is in London for the trial. Follow her tweets from the courtroom live, below.

In his closing arguments, Crown attorney Kevin Gowdey stressed to the jury that the trial is about Rafferty’s guilt, and not Terri-Lynne McClintic’s character, while he lead the jury through evidence McClintic mentioned in her testimony.

Gowdey listed off 25 specific pieces which can independently be confirmed by other pieces of evidence, including how Tori was killed, what type of hammer was used and landmarks around the murder scene. He also listed off 20 examples of Rafferty’s post-offence conduct, suggesting Rafferty kept in close contact with McClintic while she was in detention to maintain control of the situation.

He asked the courtroom if Rafferty’s actions were those of an innocent dupe, or a cold, calculating man covering up his involvement.

Looking at McClintic’s confession to police on May 24, 2009, Gowdey questioned why she would lie about it being Rafferty who killed Tori, after already making herself look so cruel and inhumane. During testimony at Rafferty’s trial, she said she was the killer, but the crown has questioned why she would make that up to begin with.

Gowdey asked the courtroom, if McClintic were behind the entire plot and he was taking orders from her, why implicate Rafferty? However, he also suggested that McClintic killed Tori at Rafferty’s urging, who picked McClintic because he knew she was violent.

In his final words, Gowdey told the jury they may not all agree on who picked up the hammer and killed Tori, but it doesn’t matter – Rafferty is guilty either way. He said Rafferty and McClintic were in it together, did it together and are guilty together, calling them a terrible team and a murderous duo.  

The judge will deliver his charge to the jury tomorrow morning, before deliberations get underway.

On Monday, Rafferty’s defence lawyer, Dirk Derstine, gave his closing argument and called into question the credibility and reliability of McClintic, who has already pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the case.

Derstine told the jury that Rafferty was there when Stafford died from blows to the head with a hammer, and he may have even come to realize at some point in the two-and-a-half hours the little girl was in his car that she was being held against her will.

The rest, he scoffed, is a fiction invented by a troubled woman who “perjured herself over and over and over again.” McClintic, who has a proven history of violence and torture ideation, was the true engine behind Tori’s death.

The kidnapping was not orchestrated by Rafferty, there is no objective evidence that Rafferty raped Tori as alleged, and he is not the one who wielded the hammer, Derstine suggested. For McClintic to testify otherwise is “absurd,” he said.

McClintic testified that Rafferty urged her to kidnap a young girl for him, that he made several stops before driving to a rural location and raping the girl, and that pent-up rage from her own childhood traumas caused McClintic to snap and murder Stafford.

That testimony marked a change from what she told police for years — that Rafferty was the one who killed Tori with a hammer — but Derstine suggested that is the one part of her story that should be believed.